Well put,"The power of tribes". This bond controls behavior and actions wherever a tribesman may reside. When China punished a recalcitrant India on the border conflict, the new Indian Army Chief stated that in formulating foreign policy it is necessary to know the people one deals with,the tribal behavior, which had unfortunately been ignored by our first PM. As regards the Euro zone, I have been amazed at the harmony achieved by disparate people of different 'tribes' purely for economic gain. Will it last ?
Hirak Nag

@Daarwin"s Toothpick: "Individuals coming from the Confucian zone at least have the honesty not to accuse Westerners of racism easily. They know very well that not in a zillion years will there ever be a white mayor in China or Japan."

Aristotle may have said that birds of the same feather flock together. Humans of the same cultural background also do. That's not genetic - or ethnic - but much more complex. People are exposed to cultures and absorb it. One can be exposed to several different cultures if you live in a multicultural society. A language, English for exemple, is just a part of it.
Some cultures are more resistive to change: island cultures? Success is a great motivation for people - specially youths - to absorb alien cultures.Take Coca-Cola or Hollywood. A friend recently told me that her son was taking up Japanese lessons because he liked their mangas - comics magazines - and she had no ancestry whatsoever to Japanese. They're just very popular with teen-agers in this country, ie, Brazil.
On the other hand, a Japanese dancer came to this country during Carnival some two years ago and applied for the role of "mestre-sala" in one of those prestigious "schools of samba" and was democratically elected to the role. He was excellent. I could not believe it but people just recognized his talent.

It's a brilliant comparison as long as you assume that France, Germany, Italy, the entire Arab world, Iran, all of South and central America, everywhere else in Europe other than Britain and Ireland, and Russia don't exist. A minor detail...

"Only tribes held together by a group feeling can survive". Then what about multi-culti Europe after mass immigration and insufficinet integration? Isn't this exactly the problem, that no one identifies anymore with the community, from the greedy banker to the "refugee" cashing in on benefits and building a house in his country of origin? (for the dim-witted: I am not saying that all bankers are greeding or all refugees rent seekers, but there is enough of that to undermine social cohesion and commitment to community values).Please note: this analysis is NOT based on any view on who is "superior". If in the 1920-ies we would have had lavish social benefits, all the Germans would have flocked to us.

a quote from 14th-century Arab historian: “Only tribes held together by a group feeling can survive in a desert.”

a quote recorded by Aristotle, Greek philosopher: '' Birds of same feather fly together''.

a quote from Heraclitus, Greek philosopher: from the different comes fairest harmony'' and All things come from strife''.

Now, let us ask questions over the article:

If the wise firms recruited on merit then why did all bankers make the same mistake ( Groupthink bias) ? What was the common between cultures of the ancient Greeks and the ancient Indians that sent Alexander the great to seek glory in India? Conclusion to draw based upon the foregoing questions is that observations of a historian do not carry the same power as the observations of a natural philosopher.

Business thrives from innovation and friction is necessary within the business for the gaps in knowledge to be revealed across boundaries of businesses and harvested for the benefit of all. Mirages are only possible in a desert is a fact which the 14th century Arab historian and the article miss conveniently.

What about overlap? Indian business people largely speak English and are former colonists of Britain. They're also a major segment of the Singaporean and Malaysian population. What about Chinese business people from America who invest in China through Hong Kong, itself an ex-colony of Britain?

This is too simplistic a view of the world. The general point to be made is that like minded people do business with each other. Trying to create unconnected silos between them is hardly an accurate depiction of what's really happening.

A very interesting article, but it just underlines something that has been very evident in the military sphere. The closest (but least mentioned) alliance in the world is ABCA or less cryptically and in a different order AUSCANUKUS (sometimes with NZ tacked on the end when the Antipodeans are behaving themselves). These countries happen to trust each other and work with each other more closely as they tend to share common values and aspirations. In my past life in the British Army, I have witnessed this on a personal basis on many occasions.

In a different and previous past life I served in the French military in a unit where the French language was ruthlessly taught to all recruits and slipping into one's own language (especially English) whilst on duty was mercilessly punished. At that time most French officers and almost all of French soldiers spoke no English at all and often disdained it. As a young “bleu” I was designated my company commander’s interpreter, when the USMC took over from us in Beirut as he was unable to string a meaningful sentence together in English. Now English is a de rigueur subject for all French officers and a good level is necessary for promotion as I found out when attending the French Staff College.

In my current life, I work for a German company and I am based in the Middle East. All of our business meetings are conducted in English. English is the commonly used language even when the vast majority of the meeting participants are German. English is this German company's foremost language for external AND internal communications. This was implemented voluntarily and imposed as best practice.

Proof positive of the ascendance of the Anglosphere and enough to make the little corporal turn again on hell’s spit-roast.

However there appears to be a long way to go for those who have suggested that the Anglosphere and Indosphere are almost linked. Or am I the only person here who has been totally baffled by the supposedly English speech of an outsourced Indian tele-worker?

Take the Japanese sphere, and this sphere has been suffering low growth in net output due to the low position of the schedule of the marginal efficiency of capital but rather silently contribute itself to stabilising the Western and Sinic spheres by purchasing public securities – such as US Treasury bills and a noticeable total value of the EFSF bonds (while China doesn’t purchase the latter) – that the Western sphere issues and transferring capital to the Sinic sphere through Official Development Assistance and various in-effect subsidies, which both China and South Korea are receiving from the Japanese sphere even today, and overseas trade with tech supply-chains in which the Japanese sphere transfers important durable capital-goods and knowledge to them.

I felt that this article tried to rush a lot of information into a small piece. For example, the article explained the importance of a diaspora and the importance of a common language, but then equated these things with culture and values. That is just not true. Diasporas are important because they provide a crucial personal connection between different markets. No matter what the culture, it is who you know not what you know. The reasons why diasporas are so important is because little cousin 1 who is living in country A complains to uncle 2 (who has some money)and lives in country B about the high cost of gizmos in country A compared to country B. They come up with an idea to sell gizmos in country B. This could happen with in a market or outside of a market. Language obviously makes business a lot easier to comprehend. It is not necessarily the ethnic background of people that make things easier, but the fact that they can communicate with each other. (American

(People of English decent make up only a small percentage of European-Americans let alone the general American population) I am American, and my own ancestry is much more French and German however, I would be more comfortable traveling to London to do business, not because of values or culture, but because I would be able to communicate with the people there (and not feel like I am missing things when people spoke in their native language, if they were able to speak English). Point of my long rant is that language and personal ties are going to be important for sure in global business, but to turn around and label these things culture and values is a slippery slope that leads to racist and xenophobic judgments. (i.e. inferring that the three listed "cultures" are more important than others)

I agree to the views expressed within the article. However, if you look at business tycoons who have made really big in the field of business, their entrepreneurship has surpassed the barriers of cultural similarities. Look at Americans tycoons like Steve Jobs, Mr Bill Gates, or for that matter the CEO of McDonalds, one of the largest fast food chains in the world. These guys have made their biggest profits out of countries which have very few english speaking population and have very few cultural similarities to the United States. I would rather rephrase the topic as "Power of Ideas" rather than the "Power of Tribes" . Imperial ties is good but the world is getting educated and smarter day by day. One cannot thrive if there is dearth of creative ideas to do business globally. If anybody disagrees please feel free to rebut

Good article, but the author misses out on the logical extension of the argument (perhaps due to lack of space, rather than lack of imagination). Culture is a mutable thing; furthermore, it can overlap not only geographically, but even within the same person. I am an American of Uruguayan descent, so I am equally comfortable in the "Anglosphere" as in the "Iberosphere", which heavily overlaps the "Medsphere", which anyone who has travelled much in Italy, Turkey, the Levant, or North Africa can attest to. The "Anglo-", "Ibero-" and "Medsphere" all overlap and are partially subsumed in the "Eurosphere" of Western civilization; which is why Ashatru feels comfortable eating in Italy and France and also doing business there; but less so in India, and perhaps radically less so in Equatorial Africa.

All of which is to say that the article is fun and interesting, but not much more than common sense. And though it hints at it, it doesn't go far enough to state the perils of falling into the trap of tribalism, "us vs. them" and the "war of civilizations". God send us some visitors from Alpha Centauri so we can stop messing about because of the color of someone's skin.

perhaps, from a purely economic point of view, it is also wise to include Koreas, Japan, and Vietnam in the "Sinosphere" definition...even without strong CHinese physical presence, they still hold the advantage of cultural similarity when they invest in China as compared to other foreigners...